


you're living in my mind

by languisity



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Artist Derek, Emotional Constipation, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-03
Updated: 2013-12-03
Packaged: 2018-01-03 09:29:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1068846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/languisity/pseuds/languisity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles waves a hand and makes a tiny dismissive noise in the back of his throat as he turns another page. "You know what I mean."</p><p>Derek takes a sip from his own cup. "That's almost never true."</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're living in my mind

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to verity, dirtydirtychai, and 1001cranes for letting me bug you with this. 
> 
> If anything is wonky, it's totally my fault. Clarification for use of the voyeurism tag in the end notes!

 

 

 

 

Derek has a stack of sketchbooks pushed up against the wall on the right side of his couch that Stiles pulls out and fans out in front of himself, sitting on the floor cross-legged.

"You have sketchbooks," Stiles says, flipping through the first book. "You are a person who sketches."

Derek sets down a mug on the table for Stiles, turns it by the handle so that the chipped edge is facing away from Stiles, and sits on the couch. "I do a lot of things."

*

Peter gave Derek his first sketch pad and a set of pencils for his twelfth birthday. He'd written _For all of your future masterpieces_ on the inside of the cover. Derek hadn't caught on at the time that it was a little bit of a joke--everything Peter did was a little bit of a joke--and he'd been happy. Proud.

Anyway, it was a step up from the composition notebooks Derek had repurposed from English class.

*

Most of the sketches are in pencil but one of the books is done entirely in charcoal--Derek had gone through a phase where he liked the way it bled and blurred too easily, liked the mess of it--and he watches how carefully Stiles goes through it. The pages are thick and stiff, and Stiles catches the very edge of one on the pad of his index finger, guiding it until it falls on its own to reveal another sketch.

"I was kind of expecting a bunch of still life studies of trees and rocks. This is like, art, though." Stiles' fingers hover over a drawing, a picture of a girl that -- if she turned to face forward, if her hair weren't in her face -- might be Laura, but don't touch.

"'Like art'," Derek repeats. He isn't sure why he's letting Stiles look at them at all.

Stiles waves a hand and makes a tiny dismissive noise in the back of his throat as he turns another page. "You know what I mean."

Derek takes a sip from his own cup. "That's almost never true."

 

Once, during a break in Stiles' sophomore year of college, Derek saw him at the coffee shop near the loft. Stiles was slouched down in the chair, tapping a finger across the touchpad of his laptop, bringing his other hand up to scratch his collarbone. He dipped his fingers beneath the neckline after a moment, the collar loose and well worn, and the movement pushed his shirt out of the way long enough for Derek to catch a glimpse of deep purple bruises. Then they were covered up again by Stiles' hand, his palm pressed to his chest, the front of his throat cradled in the v of his thumb and forefinger and--

Bruises have a smell. Lots of things have smells that most people aren't burdened with knowing. It's just that sometimes when Derek notices -- or realizes that he's noticing -- it makes it hard not to fixate on it later. It's an uncomfortable feeling to have a scent that fits a physical sensation, to have a smell that feels like a body slammed into a wall, a fist to the face, teeth set to skin.

Derek wondered but didn't want to know how many bruises Stiles was hiding under his shirts. He drew it all instead, filled up pages and pages with them, smudged the charcoal with his fingers until it blurred the lines of his fingerprints.

 

They're in the third book, the one Stiles is looking through now. Stiles makes it through three of the sketches before he looks over at Derek, and tilts his head to the side in a way that looks like a parody of the look Scott gets when he's tracking a sound.

Derek stands and gestures at Stiles' cup. "You want more coffee?"

"Yeah." Stiles snaps the book shut. "Let's do that," he says, and shrugs, an easy roll of his shoulders, like he's stretching out an ache.

Stiles is on the couch when Derek comes back with more coffee. He waits for Derek to set down the mug and sit again before he says, "So you've been, what, watching me?"

It doesn't sound like an accusation, exactly, but Derek tenses anyway. "Why do you think--" Derek starts.

"Don't." Stiles shakes his head. "Don't do that. I get that 'elusive jerk' is kind of like your default setting, and you think it's working for you, but--"

"Okay," Derek says quickly, more to get Stiles to stop talking than as a sign of agreement. It doesn't really work. Stiles is still watching him, still expecting some sort of real answer; Derek leans over Stiles, tilting his head to the side so that Stiles won't have to, and kisses him. Stiles tastes like coffee and not enough creamer, and his lips are a little chapped. Stiles is kissing back.

"So, uh. Fuck you," Stiles says, words coasting out on an exhale. He has a hand resting on Derek's shoulder, and his palm feels hot and damp, even through Derek's t-shirt.

"Fuck yourself." Derek pulls away and Stiles doesn't try to stop him, lets his hand drop down into the space between them with a soft thump.

Stiles snorts. "Yeah, sure," he says. "I'll take a picture and everything. Send it to you later." 

*

He gets a series of messages at two in the morning on Saturday from Stiles' number. When he opens them there's no text, just pictures. Stiles licking salt off the neck of a guy Derek vaguely remembers as one of Stiles' friends, biting a slice of lime he's holding between his teeth in another. One with an ex he vaguely remembers Stiles dating for four weeks last summer; she has an arm wrapped around his waist, her fingertips dipping in into the front pocket of his jeans. Stiles with his head thrown back, mouth and eyes wide open as he laughs. Stiles looking straight at the camera, lazy-eyed with a splotchy blush coloring his cheeks and neck.

The right corner of his mouth is lifted up in a grin.

The hollow of his throat is shiny with sweat.

*

It's just starting to rain when Stiles comes back again. He pushes his way into the loft, his front brushing all along Derek's side, and Derek feels like he's being marked. Stiles goes to the couch and drops down heavily, slouching.

"I'm leaving in a week," he says when Derek comes to stand in front of him. He hooks two fingers in the belt loop of Derek's jeans and tugs until Derek shuffles in close. Stiles tugs again after a beat and says, "Down." His voice goes up a little at the end, makes it sounds enough like a suggestion that Derek goes.

"I want to--tell me if you don't--" Stiles says.

Derek clears his throat. "Yeah. Yes."

*

Derek watches, eyes caught on the steady slide-twist of Stiles' hand on his dick. He leans in closer to do--something. To touch, to put his mouth on Stiles. Derek wants that, wants the taste of him, suddenly, viscerally, and Stiles is right there. Stiles stops him with a hand in Derek's hair, pulling hard enough to make Derek shiver all the way down, to make his cock twitch and his breath catch in his throat.

It's not much longer before Stiles goes tense and still all over, shooting all over his shirt and hand. He's trembling; Derek can feel it as Stiles relaxes the hand in Derek's hair, petting instead of pulling. Derek fumbles to open his jeans and get his dick out.

"You should-- you should. Fuck. C'mon. C'mere," Stiles says, but Derek can't, can't do anything but stroke himself faster, harder, press his face against crease of Stiles' hip and moan as he comes and comes.

*

"How long have you..." Stiles raises his eyebrows, waves his hand in some soft, abstract shape. "When did that start?"

"A few months ago," Derek says. It seems like the safest answer to whatever Stiles is really asking; it's not really a lie. "Maybe half a year." He starts to reach out but drops his hand down on the bed in the space between them, spreads his fingers out over the covers.

This is the third time Stiles has been over. Derek found him leaning up against his door when Derek got back from the grocery store. He was wearing a baseball cap that he'd turned sideways so they could kiss, but Derek had snatched it off.

It's somewhere by the front door now, near the steps with his shoes and Derek's shirt.The groceries haven't been put away, but it's all stuff that can wait.

Stiles snorts, then wrinkles his nose at the sound he's made. "And you were just gonna, what, neoclassically stalk me?"

"You don't-- that doesn't make sense."

"You know what I mean," Stiles says. He shifts closer and his knee bumps against Derek's.

Derek rolls over onto his back. He says, "We don't have to talk about anything."

*

When Stiles leaves, he says, "It's not like you're not going to see me," and Derek nods because Stiles sounds like he means it.

*

"There's soda in the fridge," Derek says, unpacking the containers of food. There's lasagne and spaghetti with meatballs in foil pans, and garlic bread in a paper bag. There's more garlic than there is bread, and the oil from it leaves a film on everything it touches, but it's soft and when Derek pulls off a piece a puff of steam escapes.

Isaac goes to the fridge, but only gets a soda for himself, so Boyd goes in after him for what's left of the six pack.

"I'm telling you, it works every time," Stiles tells Erica. He's leaning back on the counter with his head tilted in toward hers. Derek isn't sure why--is a little surprised that Stiles is here. Scott isn't here. He hardly ever comes when they have dinner together like this unless Isaac drags him along, and Derek had thought--

But when Stiles showed up, he'd said, "What, you want me to leave?" before Derek could even ask why he was there at all, and Derek was helpless to do anything but let him in. He's leaving tomorrow, anyway.

"How do you always come back more full of shit than you were before?" Erica pats Stiles on the chest once hard enough to make him wince, but he laughs and raises his eyebrows when he catches Derek looking.

Derek turns away, stops listening.

"That's disgusting. Get a plate," Derek says, when Isaac grabs his fork and digs into the lasagne. It's easily enough to feed twice as many people.

"You get a plate," Isaac says, mouth full, a thin line of cheese connecting him to the rest of the lasagne. Derek shoves him by the shoulder and the cheese stretches until it breaks, lying in a lazy curl along Isaac's shirt.

"Get a plate," Derek says again. Boyd snorts, coming back with the rest of the sodas, enough plates and forks for everyone, and a spoon for serving. He sticks the spoon in the lasagne and gives one of the plates and forks to Derek, leaves the rest on the table for everyone else to get themselves.

They all crowed around the battered table Derek found on the side of the road with names and crude stick people doing crude things scratched into it, now covered in food stains that have seeped into the wood.

Stiles sits on Derek's right and taps the back of his hand against Derek's thigh. "You look like you're surveying your pasture. Seriously," he says, then, softer, "Sit down." Boyd rolls his eyes, Erica smirks, and Isaac laughs.

Derek takes a seat and the the chair wobbles a little, uneven. He leans back into it.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Re: voyeurism -- it's implied that Derek has been watching Stiles for some time. He has a sketchbook full of pictures of Stiles that Stiles later stumbles upon. As a result, Stiles sends private pictures of himself to Derek to provoke him. 
> 
> Title lifted from Supersymmetry by Arcade Fire 
> 
> I'm [perfectlytense](http://perfectlytense.tumblr.com) on tumblr if that's a thing you do.


End file.
